Rosicrucian Digest Vol 85 Number 2 2007 - Rosicrucian Order

Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 2
2007
Spain, Sebastián Vizcaíno set sail in three
well-built ships and a longboat from Acapulco
on Sunday May 5, 1602, under the divine
protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. 53
Vizcaíno’s voyage and the surrounding events
are generally well documented. 54
The expedition included Vizcaíno, his son
Juan, fourteen ships-officers, 55 126–150
soldiers and sailors, and 3 Friars of
the Discalced Carmelite Order, 56 for a total of
145–169 people. However, there is some
ambiguity in the total number of people who
embarked on the voyage. Vizcaíno gives a value
in his diary of 126 soldiers, 57 for a total of 145
persons, whereas the detailed account of the
voyage by Father Antonio de la Ascension
states that 200 soldiers
were authorized and
raised, 58 increasing the
total to 219. Father
Ascension’s later report
dated 1620, however, lists
150 soldiers and a total of
about 200 persons on the
voyage, 59 implying an
additional 30 people
beyond Vizcaíno and his
crew. The purpose of Juan
Vizcaíno on the voyage is
not addressed in Vizcaíno’s or Father
Ascension’s accounts, and it is likely that
others not listed in the records, such as those
suggested in Rosicrucian writings, were also
on board.
After eight months at sea, Vizcaíno’s ships
entered Monterey Bay on the night of
December 16, 1602. 60 The bay was
considered to be the fruit of their voyage—a
resting place for ships returning from the
western Pacific. On the next day, Vizcaíno
sent parties ashore near what is now
Fisherman’s Wharf in downtown Monterey
to obtain water, food, wood, and an
assessment of the resources and fertility of the
land. On December 18, following a Mass
held in a tent erected under a large oak
tree 61 —the first Mass in Alta California—
Vizcaíno and his officers decided to send one
Page 16
Fig. 2. The Carmel Mission today; the
Rosicrucian temple ruins would be near the
single-story buildings to the left of the main
church. (Photo by the author.)
of their ships back to Acapulco with the most
sick among them, along with copies of the
maps and reports made during the voyage. 62
This ship sailed on December 29, during a
time of deteriorating weather, increasing
snow in the inland mountains, and freezing
of freshwater streams near the shore. A party
was sent on Wednesday, January 1, 1603, to
obtain fresh water from the Carmel River,
eight km (five miles) to the south, which
was so named by Vizcaíno, himself; 63 the
supplies were replenished late on January 3.
On that final day, Vizcaíno and eleven others
traveled overland from Monterey Bay to the
Valley of Carmel. There, his party split into
two, with five crew members sent to
investigate a Native
American village, leaving
the remaining seven
people in the Valley; all
returned to Monterey
Bay by nightfall on the
3rd. Vizcaíno and the
remaining ships left
Monterey Bay on Friday,
January 3, heading north
toward Cape Mendocino,
and then turning south to
arrive at Mazatlan,
Mexico, on February 17, 1603. A total of
eighteen days were spent in the Monterey
Bay and Carmel areas.
The location of Vizcaíno’s landing site in
southern Monterey Bay is marked today by a
Celtic cross and a plaque near Lighthouse
Avenue and Artillery Street. 64 The Mass was
celebrated on a nearby hill in what is now
Lower Presidio Historic Park (Fig 1); it is
marked by a statue erected in 1891
commemorating Father Junipero Serra’s later
reoccupation of the site, along with several
information plaques and a cross dating from
1770 marking the burial site of one of Father
Serra’s troops, Alexo Nino. 65 The oak tree
used as a canopy for both Vizcaíno’s and
Father Serra’s Masses stood until ca. 1900. 66
Remains of the Serra Oak are preserved at the
San Carlos Cathedral in Monterey. 67